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Imperfections In Rise of the Imperfects
Game Girl Advance has an intriguing screed from an EA designer who has a lot to say about what went wrong with the Marvel title "Rise of the Imperfects". From the article: "When you make games for a living, sometimes you play games for fun, and sometimes you play games for research. If you're not playing Marvel Nemesis for research, there really isn't much point to it, I'm afraid. This game shows a lot of signs of being forced out the door before it was ready, which is a fairly common trait of the first game in a new genre for a developer. I'm going to step through my impressions of the game: what didn't work, what did work, and what I'd like to see expanded upon and improved if EA or Nihilistic ever tries to do another fighter in a similar mold (which I wouldn't be opposed to, honestly)." Shocking to see such honest talk from a member of the developing company.
They obviously pushed development to hit the peak season. But in their rush they seemed to not notice another Marvel liscened game was being released on the same weekend, "X-Men Legends:II". I personally was looking forward to Marvel Nemisis until I read a couple reviews and then saw that the Legends sequel was coming out. How could they possibly feel that an underdeveloped piece of rental-bate could compete with one of the top selling games from last year? I guess I'll find out when I get off of work and get on a computer that doesn't have the "Websense" website filter.
I am and always will be a stereotype, because who in their right mind prefers mono?
Having freelanced on and off for a couple of gaming companies, I've honestly felt that the American gaming industry has been unhealthy for a while - young boys making prurient games for young boys, with only the occasional break-out title that's appealing to a more diverse audience. Not that I'm against a little prurient fun now and then, but any objective visitor to E3 will quickly realize the fanboy infatuation and shallow flashiness alongside very little constructive cultural presence (not to mention very few women outside of skin-tight clothing).
This is the problem with an industry that's engaging in design-by-comittee. Back when all it took was six or seven guys in a garage to create a video game, real innovation was easy. Now with games approaching or surpassing major motion picture budgets, you have tight-fisted executive boards that are terrified of anything outside of the mainstream, and rely heavily on tried-and-true rehashed sequels.
The well-known fanboy corruption of the video game media has contributed to this culture for a long time now, and only recently are we starting to see a little stabilization in both video game exposure and video game reporting. It's a little embarrasing that an article like this should be remarkable for it's candor, as opposed to being the norm.
Meet the author, a recent M.S. grad from CMU who interned as a testing programmer on The Sims 2 and did a little work on Ultima X Online.
http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/bkj/